Robert Elliott, Ph.D., Arthur C. Bohart, Ph.D.,
Jeanne C. Watson, Ph.D., & Leslie S. Greenberg, Ph.D.
Definition. Carl Rogers (1980, p. 85) defined empathy as: “the therapist’s sensitive ability and willingness to understand the client’s thoughts, feelings and struggles from the client’s point of view. [It is] this ability to see completely through the client’s eyes, to adopt his frame of reference....It means entering the private perceptual world of the other...being sensitive, moment by moment, to the changing felt meanings which flow in this other person....It means sensing meanings of which he or she is scarcely aware” (p. 142).
Clinical Example. “Mark” is a 30-year-old man who came to psychotherapy complaining of pervasive anxiety. Five minutes into the first session, the following took place:
Client:I’m really in a panic (anxious, looking plaintively at the therapist). I feel anxious all the time. Sometimes it seems so bad I really worry that I’m completely falling apart. Nothing like this has ever happened to me before.
Therapist:So a real sense of vulnerability—kind of like, you don’t even know yourself anymore.
Client:Yes! That’s it. I don’t know myself anymore. I feel totally lost, like a big cloud that just takes me over, and I can’t even find myself in it anymore. I don’t even know what I want, what I trust….I’m lost.
Therapist:Totally lost, like, “Where did Mark go? I can’t find myself anymore.”
Client:No, I can’t (sadly, and thoughtfully).